Various methods and apparatus for cleaning various vegetable and food products including the peeling, abrading and removal of skin and surface blemishes as well as cleaning and polishing of the product have been developed and used with various degrees of success. These include both mechanical and non-mechanical devices.
Mechanical devices which have been used in the past include tubs with internal scraping surfaces such as carborundum and bristle spindles arranged in cascading frames or in circular drum or trough structures. Most of these have previously used units have shortcomings due to lack of contour action whereby the product had to be ground down to the deepest blemish and due to excessive use of water to flush the removed waste. These and other shortcomings resulted in nigh product losses and as a result various means were devised for the application of steam, chemicals, infra-red rays, lasers and simply water. Most of these attempts provided results that were less than desirable.
For example, when high pressure steam was utilized it boiled off the skin only partially and the product, potatoes for example, had to be subsequently run through skin eliminators with the attendant additional requirement of large quantities of water.
Attempts at overcoming waste of flush water have been made and various patents, as listed in the Prior Art Statement, are concerned with such units. Such arrangements also included spindle drum units, perforated drums or cages which were defined by spaced apart rods or possibly carborundum units.
The applicant provides a unit which replaces flush water by applied centrifugal force through a spinning product carrier cone which expels waste material through annular openings therein due to the horizontal force vector, with the product being advanced upwardly to discharge due to the vertical force vector of centrifugal force. The annular openings may be provided by making such outer carrier cone of mesh or expanded metal.
An object of the applicant's device is characterized by allowing cleaning action only down to a predetermined depth, generally not beyond the thickness of the skin.
Another object of the invention is the concept of bringing the product into a bed of abrading, peeling and polishing means where the product can act relatively freely but within a controlled manner and atmosphere which assures that full surface coverage is accomplished.
It is a further object of the applicant's invention to provide a food processing machine which incorporates a pair of centric cone elements with means for controlling direction and rotational speed of the cones for the removal, abrading and the like of the exteriors of various food products with the removed portions of the skin being directed outwardly by the horizontal vector component of centrifugal force and the cleaned product being directed upwardly by the vertical vector component of the centrifugal force.
It is still a further object of the applicant's invention to provide a substantially waterless food processing machine wherein a pair of inverted, frusto-conical elements are provided having rotational and directional control for each of said elements with the product being introduced into the inner of such cones and disbursed therein into the cleaning area between the cones.
It is still a further object of the applicant's invention to provide a food processing machine in which a pair of inverted, spaced, frusto-conical elements are arranged with abrading means provided on the exterior of the interior cone and product advancement depressions are arranged on the interior of the outer cone.
It is still a further object of the applicant's invention to provide a food processing machine in which a product collection area in the form of a cowling arranged angularly to horizontal is provided for receipt and delivery of the cleaned product and a refuse collection area in the form of a cowling arranged at angularly to horizontal is provided to receive and deliver the refuse removed from the product.
These and other objects and advantages of the invention will more fully appear from a consideration of the accompanying drawings and description.